It has nothing to do with a brush. Given the enormous quantities of Italian food Americans consume, why haven't we learned to speak a little Italian? The "ch" in Italian words gets the "k" sound. Meanwhile, "ci" or "ce" gets the soft "ch" sound. So ceci, the Italian word for chickpea, is pronounced che-chee. Got it?

Eat 24 maintains it's shree-ra-cha, according to the official Sriracha website (I didn't find the pronunciation there), but The New York Times says it's SIR-rotch-ah, and they interviewed the operations manager, as well as the founder of its manufacturer, Huy Fong Foods. I'm siding with The New York Times on this one.

What are the most frequently mispronounced foods in restaurants? Not surprisingly, this is a popular topic online. Chefs and waiters must howl with laughter back in the kitchen over diners' garbled attempts at sounding out the unfamiliar words on menus. To be fair though, chefs and waiters aren't always poster kids for proper pronunciation either, especially if they're cooking a cuisine that's not native to their heritage.

Eat24, an online restaurant food delivery website that covers many cities across the country, prides itself on preventing the possible embarrassment of foreign language-challenged individuals with the mere click of a mouse, but it compiled its own list of mispronunciations anyway, as a service for those who do venture into a brick and mortar restaurant. The list confirms America's continuing love affair with Italian, and the increasing popularity of Mexican, Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian, and South American food.